In pictures: Prominent Valletta landmarks that are no more

A cynic’s view might well be that Valletta boasts of so many conspicuous landmarks that it can well afford to lose a few. I would not be that complacent.

No one expects a city planned almost 500 years ago to remain vacuum sealed and smothered in mothballs. Towns represent living organisms and survive through their own dynamics. They grow and decay, they mutate to accommodate fashions, needs and whims. Cities often project in masonry the spirit of their inhabitants.

The Auberge d’Auvergne, in Kingsway, destroyed by enemy action, today the site of the law courts.

Interior of the Greek Catholic church ‘Damascena’, in Archbishop Street, blitzed during WWII.

The original Carmelite church, demolished to be replaced by today’s modern rotunda.

Ponsonby’s Column, a memorial erected near Hastings Gardens and destroyed by lightning in a violent 1864 storm.

The Valletta Elementary School built near Fort St Elmo in the early 20th century and destroyed by bombing during WWII.

Valletta has suffered its fair share of these mutations – some beyond anyone’s control, others self-inflicted. War damage took its toll. Of the seven auberges of the Order, two met their fate through the loving care of enemy action, another by deliberate choice. Some churches suffered direct hits. Others, like Nibbia, not irreparably damaged, were later vandalically obliterated all the same.

Two dismantled Valletta landmarks – Nibbia church and the university anatomical theatre.

The same philistine vandalism targeted the Mandraġġ, overlooking Marsamxett. Horrific social minuses demeaned it: overcrowding, lawlessness, poverty, lack of sanitation. Instead of addressing these very real challenges, the government chose the easy way out – raze that ancient conurbation to the ground. Properly rehabilitated, an original cinquecento slum would today have been one of the major highlights of Valletta - see Petit France now, once the infamous favela of Strasbourg.

The Manderaggio, overlooking Marsamxett Harbour, dismantled as slum clearance.

I am publishing some 20 prominent Valletta landmarks that are no more and of which I have photographs.

Partial view of the 19th century Chapel of Bones, destroyed in World War II.

Other disappeared too, like the majestic Neptune fountain overlooking the Grand Harbour Marina, the palazzo pulled down to build the Borsa, the central third of Spinola Palace bulldozed to turn into ‘fletsijiet’, the British Gymnasium, which preceded the Central Bank, and the Main Guard fountain dismantled for soldiers to left-right unhindered.

The Military Gymnasium, c. 1910, on the footprint of today’s Central Bank.

In pictures: Other Valletta landmarks that are no more

All the capital’s old vertical attractions have now disappeared, without a single exception

Several of the major landmarks that at some time had profiled Valletta, today, for a multitude of reasons, no longer do. A previous pictorial recorded a few still around after the 1840s, when photography was invented, and, today, I will be documenting more losses.

A late 19th century view from Marsamxett, still showing two windmills and the Ponsonby Column.

St Elmo lighthouse, demolished in World War II.

The monumental statuary formerly adorning the facade of the Exchange Building.

One curious feature, almost certainly coincidental, is that the victims of the ravages of time included all Valletta’s vertical attractions. An almost monotonous horizontality characterises the cityscape. Before the erection of the spire of St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral and, more recently, the dome of the Carmelite Basilica, almost no uprights disturbed the uniform flatness of the roofscapes.

The fountain in front the Auberge d’Auvergne removed in the 1920s to be replaced by the Great Siege monument.

Only a few did – the Marsamxett windmills, Ponsonby’s Column, St Elmo’s lighthouse, the smokestacks of the Order’s bakery, Castile turret, Verdalle’s Column and, close by, the impressive twin chimneys of the old Floriana power station. All have now disappeared, without a single exception. It is as if the city waged a systematic war against all its phallic symbols.

The fourth gateway of Valletta designed by architects Morpurgo and Zavellani Rossi.

The third city gate, built by the colonial administration in the 19th century.

The original Porta di Monte being demolished to be replaced by today’s Victoria Gate.

The enemy blitz accounted for most of the wholesale destruction of Valletta’s built environment. On its four sides, historic buildings surrounded St John’s Co-Cathedral. Not one survived the fury – all razed to the ground. Those who believe in miracles will point out that, encircled by this indiscriminate devastation, St John’s remained unscathed, except for one minor German hit, which, ironically, damaged the… German chapel.

The historic ‘Casa del Giuoco’ near Hastings Gardens, dismantled in 1972 to be rebuilt in the Dragonara grounds.

Gateway to the Ferreria, the Order’s foundry, replaced by today’s Palazzo Francia.

The postwar Embassy Complex

Valletta had already suffered a wave of vandalic destruction before the war, when a number of palazzi of the knights were pulled down to build bland blocks of apartments instead, like St Paul’s Buildings, Bartolo’s Palace, Spinola apartments, Vincenti’s Buildings. Beautiful heritage can sometimes be expendable. Lucre never is.

The 19th century Royal Opera House, one of the landmarks of Valletta, a major victim of the Nazi air raids.

The naval picket house surmounting Kingsgate. Demolished after the war.

All images from the author’s collections